At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/09/discovery-lost-civilization-wiped-out-flood/ … the ancient Sumerian city at the stie of Tell Farah seems to have another city buried beneath its Sumerian period ruins. Prior to 3000BC – 5000 years ago. There are also geological anomalies we are told, and some evidence it was wiped out in a massive flooding event. But how long ago? Daily Galaxy, taking inspiration from some earlier media reports of the discovery, says the flood occurred just before 20,000 years ago. Do they mean at the very end of the Late Glacial Maximum – around 18,000 years ago? If so, we do know that the end of the Ice Age, and the melting of glaciers in NE America and NW Europe, involved the movement of a lot of water along rivers such as the Mississippi and the Danube – expanding the size of the Gret Lakes and the Black Sea in the process. Other rivers emptied into the Caspian Sea. It would be difficult to extend this into Mesopotamia as mountain ranges stand between these inland seas and the Iraqi plain.
Howevewr, there is another possibility. It may coincide with events around 8000 years ago, marking the end of the Ubaid civilisation. This also coincided with worldwide flooding events along continental shelf systems in western Europe and SE Asia. However, would that also have occurred in the Middle East? Well, there were certainly changes in the amount of water in the Persian Gulf, and many Ubaid sites in what is now the Gulf are now submerged. Only furthere excavation will perhaps come up with the date of the ruins.
If the Biblical flood actually had an origin in the Exilic period, spent in southern Iraq, or what was once Sumeria, as many scholars seem to think, might the Tell Farah flood be part of the original legend – a flood that engulfed a few other old city sites.
The geological anomaly amounts to a thick layer of yellow clay and sand, described as an inundation layer. It has parallels with flash flood events in other parts of the world. In this instance a similar geological layer has been unearthed at both Ur and Kish – as well as Harappa in the Indus Valley. Egyptian tradition also appears to have a similar tradition of a flooding event – prior to the Old Kingdom. These events appear to date around 3000BC, coinciding with what is known as the Piorra Oscillation [look up the internet sources on this event]. This appears to indicate the date of the flood layer was much later than 8000 years ago. So, where did the idea of dating the event to close on 20,000 years ago? One Matt le Croix drew attention of it to the Daily Mail, for example, and this idea was taken up by other media sources. Daily Galaxy seems to have taken the baton on at the link above. Matt le Croix claimed there was nothing during the last 11,000 years, the whole of the Holocene, to indicate a major flooding event in the region. A statement that ignores global sea level changes around 6200 and 3000BC. The Persian Gulf was flooded, for example, and sea level in the Gulf has gone up, above modern levels, before coming back down again. We don’t really know why, although melting glaciers always are deemed to be the culprit.
Later, we are told, rather than analysing archaeological data, the logical place to go, Matt le Croix opted for geological records such as ice cores, tree rings, and geomagnetic anomalies. Yet, excavations beneath the flood layer have revealed pottery similar to tradional Sumerian pottery during the 3rd millennium BC, and Farah II style bowls and polychrome jars etc. My money is on 3000BC.